‘Pay-as-you-feel’ cafe, which uses waste food headed for the bin, reopens in Northampton

Carly Roberts

Elsie’s Cafe - part of The Real Junk Food Network - serves up ‘intercepted’ supermarket ingredients which otherwise would be sent to landfill.

The cafe, which originally started up at the Northampton Labour Club in 2015, has now opened it's doors to the public at a community building in Brunswick Place.

General manager, Shena Cooper

General manager, Shena Cooper said: "It is for everybody and we encourage everybody to come.

"We are not a charity and we do not get money from outside, so we need money to keep going. We are a community interest company, a not-for-profit company.

"Everybody comes here at the moment, it's for everybody who cares about food being wasted and who care about the environment. Obviously, the food is going to landfill, so its a huge detriment to the environment."

The cafe, which asks diners to 'pay as they feel', also plays host to a 'boutique table' that displays items of food that consumers can take for a small donation.

Elsie's cafe

She added: "We take stuff that has gone out of date, we look at it, if it's mouldy we throw it away, if it smells we throw it away... if it’s not, we use it. There are no dates on things.

"It’s all about increasing food security in Northampton and raising people's awareness. It’s so different than everything else, it’s for everybody, it’s really inclusive.

"There’s two guiding principles to the real junk food project. The first is that 95 percent of all junk food that is served, is rescued and that nobody ever charges for food. The second principle is that there's never a price on the food, it’s never charged for."